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To love to read is to exchange hours of ennui for hours of delight.

Baron de Montesquieu

A fondness for reading changes the inevitable dull hours of our life into exquisite hours of delight.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Delight Dull Reading
If I knew of something that could serve my nation but would ruin another, I would not propose it to my prince, for I am first a man and only then a Frenchman… because I am necessarily a man, and only accidentally am I French.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Firsts Men Ruin
There is no one, says another, whom fortune does not visit once in his life; but when she does not find him ready to receive her, she walks in at the door, and flies out at the window.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Another Doors Fortune Window
I have never known any distress that an hour’s reading did not relieve.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Fearless Philosophical Reading
In constitutional states, liberty is compensation for heavy taxes; in dictatorships, the subsititue is light taxes.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Liberty Light States
Ever since the invention of gunpowder.. I continually tremble lest men should, in the end, uncover some secret which would provide a short way of abolishing mankind, of annihilating peoples and nations in their entirety.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Gunpowder Men Secret
There are three species of government: republican, monarchical, and despotic.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Gambling Government Three
We must have constantly present in our minds the difference between independence and liberty. Liberty is a right of doing whatever the laws permit, and if a citizen could do what they forbid he would no longer be possessed of liberty.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Differences Independence Law
There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Law Name Tyrant
Law should be like death, which spares no one.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Law Spare
An empire founded by war has to maintain itself by war.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Empires Peace War
There is no nation so powerful, as the one that obeys its laws not from principals of fear or reason, but from passion.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Law Passion Powerful
The alms given to a naked man in the street do not fulfil the obligations of the state, which owes to every citizen a certain subsistence, a proper nourishment, convenient clothing, and a kind of life not incompatible with health.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Citizens Men Naked
Useless laws weaken the necessary laws.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Law Liberty Philosophical
Never create by law what can be accomplished by morality.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Courage Law Morality
The state of slavery is in its own nature bad.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Bad Nature Slavery States
I should like to abolish funerals; the time to mourn a person is at his birth, not his death.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Art History Philosophy
I suffer from the disease of writing books and being ashamed of them when they are finished.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Book Suffering Writing
The history of commerce is that of the communication of the people.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Commerce Communication People
As virtue is necessary in a republic, and honor in a monarchy, fear is what is required in a despotism. As for virtue, it is not at all necessary, and honor would be dangerous there.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Despotism Honor Political Republic
Passion makes us feel, but never see clearly.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Cleanly Feel Passion
Countries are not cultivated in proportion to their fertility, but to their liberty.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Country Fertility Liberty
There have never been so many civil wars as in the Kingdom of Christ.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Civil War Kingdoms War
To succeed in the world we must look foolish but be wise.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Looks Success Wise
The Ottoman Empire whose sick body was not supported by a mild and regular diet, but by a powerful treatment, which continually exhausted it.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Powerful Sick
If we only wanted to be happy, it would be easy; but we want to be happier than other people, and that is almost always difficult, since we think them happier than they are.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Difficult People Since Thinking
There is as yet no liberty if the power of judging be not separated from legislative power and the executrix
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

Executrix Judging Liberty Separate

To love to read is to exchange hours of ennui for hours of delight.

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To love to read is to exchange hours of ennui for hours of delight.

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